How to Deal Effectively With Anxiety

Granted, anxiety does not exactly sound as serious as having, say, Ebola; nevertheless, it’s just as capable of being fatal – albeit more slowly. These are anxious times we live in, so many things are wrong with the world that seem beyond our control or understanding. Terrorists threaten to blow everyone up at the drop of a hat; infectious incurable diseases are proliferating by the minute; the rate of divorce is just…crazy; and most importantly, money is tight. It’s a wonder we are able to get up in the morning and function.

As societal anxiety levels rise higher and higher each day, some societies have taken to medicating it away either through legal meds such as Quitipin and other anti-anxiety medications, or non-prescription medications such as weed, cocaine and heroin. Of course anxiety is not the only reason people are doing these drugs, but if you peel away the layers, it is likely that it is at the root of their problems.

Insomnia, stomach pain, headache, backache, bad dreams; the list of how anxiety manifest in the body is endless. These are merely physical symptoms of mental upheaval but the mental upheaval can result in some severe chronic physical manifestations. Changes in mood are known to change the chemistry of the body, affect the balance of hormones and have long term effects on a person’s health. When our mood is positive, this can have an effect on illness in the body and make the person feel better, even affecting the prognosis of the illness. This can be seen clearly below in the video known as The Secret. How we think, affects how we feel, and when we think about negative things or the possibility of negative things happening to us, it makes us feel anxious.

It is said that the more you feed your fear, the more it grows. While there is some truth to this, it is also true that running away from your anxieties does not resolve anything. If one is anxious about money for example, running away from this anxiety by escaping into drink, drugs and other distractions may work for a time, but at the end of the day, the money troubles will still be waiting for you when you sober up. In fact, your money worries may possibly be made worse by the expense of running away from them. Sometimes the best thing to do is to stop running away from anxieties and simply face them. Many times we are afraid that if we face our anxieties, they will overwhelm us. The truth is that the amount of adrenalin one can produce at any one time is limited. Once it is depleted, the body has to wait until more is manufactured before it can continue its fear-fest. By that time, you’ve realised that the fear has not killed you or prostrated you and have possibly come up with possible solutions or stop gap measures. The point is, letting yourself experience the fear of whatever it is you are anxious about, allows you to realise that you can handle it.

You realise of course, that this is simply the main source of anxiety. Let’s say you’re anxious about not making rent this month because you haven’t earned enough to cover it. The prospect of not being able to pay your rent makes you so anxious, that you’re fearful that the anxiety will overwhelm you and you will somehow be ‘unable to cope’. Let’s look at the ‘worst that could happen’ should your anxieties come to fruition. The worst that could happen is that you can’t pay your rent, maybe your landlord throws you out in the street, you have nowhere to live and you’re really embarrassed about that. Surely a fate worse than death. Or is it? Only those who have been dead can say. How many people who are anxious about making rent money actually end up on the street though? I’m guessing that if it was a majority of people who had money worries, there would be a lot more people living in the street. Yet, something always happens. Money is found, or you find a cheaper place to live, borrow money, sell your flat screen TV, turn to prostitution, gambling or theft…something.

Anxiety is a state of mind that manifests in ways that cause bodily discomfort. It can give you heart burn, migraines, diarrhoea, vomiting and other forms of embarrassing bodily dysfunction. It can be debilitating in the long term, especially if one has a tendency to run from it, rather than deal with it as it arises. The more anxiety you keep in storage, the bigger it will become. It has been known to cause appendices to burst, heart attack, and stroke, high blood pressure…which can definitely kill you – slowly and unpleasantly.

So instead of waiting for that, deal with each little anxiety as it rises, by finding the solution that works for you. For sure it is out there just waiting for you to notice it.